Ice and Blood

[emjlr3]

Ice and Blood (AoD2) beta2​

A new map project from your favorite green being, emjlr3!​

Introduction:

This is a new project started from the ground up, with some help from Rinpun and Acehart. This is somewhat of a map similar to my last project Aeon of Dominion. Two teams battle it out for domination, trying to, in the end, destroy the opponents base. Each team has 5 players, 1 base, and there are 2 medium sized lanes connecting the two. There is plenty of room to roam about and kill/do stuff out and about, outside of the main lane and/or base. You get to pick your hero, level up your abilities and stats, get neat items, and try to pwn the enemies before you get pwned yourself.​

The basic idea is to have a fast paced map, with fun heroes and items, adventurous side quests, beautiful terrain, and addictive action packed game play.​

Neat Features:

• Hero Selection System - select your hero with help from Vexorian's system
• Advanced Hero Attribute System - select what attributes increase when your hero levels
• Team and Solo Quests - complete quests with your team or alone, which grant team, hero and item benefits
• Entirely Unique Bases - every base tower and building is customly built
• Upgradeable Allied Creeps and Towers - boost the power of your creep waves or the strength of your towers to help defend your base
• Imported Terrain Models - neat models which make the terrain that much better
• JASS Enhanced Heroes and Items - the best spells and items you have ever seen
• Hero Roles - each hero is designed to fit a niche in game play, no more 4 nuke heroes / 4 passive heroes with no point to their existence
• Revenge Kills - exact revenge on heroes who have killed you in the past

New Ideas/Concepts:

Beacons - if anyone has played Company of Heroes, I was considering putting beacons that can be captured and held against the enemy, which can give boosts to heroes and/or the team or allied computer. I think this is a concept that would promote team play, as well as different styles of competition.
Assists - this is a tried and true concept that a few games have used to again promote team play and help to share rewards for killing heroes. AoD did not have this, but had enemy heroes drop glyphs that could be shared among the team and used for uber items. Assists could give out rewards for all those involved in hero kills.
Game Modes - as far as hero killing goes. There could be a set limit, where you can die 7 times, and that is it, so if all enemy heroes are killed that many times the game is lost. Or possibly 25 kills allowed per team. These are all different game modes that could be implemented along with normal play, at the jurisdiction of the host.
Re balance - I know that more often then not, games did not always end with the players it started with. This could help to eliminate this problem, by re balancing teams so that they are even and the game is once again fare.
Projectile Interaction - a lot of time heroes can shoot spells that in real life would hit each other, possibly negating both, or having one over power the other. This could be implemented so higher level abilities can overpower weaker ones, or that abilities of the same level would hit and dissolve on impact, exacting their effects where they explode. This would add to the realism of the game I feel.
​

Thoughts/Concerns:

If you have an idea you think my map could benefit by through my reading it, please post your thought. If you have any questions or other comments, do not hesitate to let them be heard. If you are interested in lending a hand in the production, pm me with your thoughts ​

Full Release Progress:

Terrain - 99%
Heroes - 90%
Items - 75%
Triggers - 90%
Misc. - 85%​

**Beta2 test now available!!!!

Beta2

• Survival now requires level 4 before it can be learned
• Minor changes here and there, and some coding updates
• All abilities now follow the QWER template
• Replaced ranged creeps missile models to be less obstructive
• Removed hero creation lag at the cost of increased load time
• Changed the way some ingame messages are presented
• Camouflage is now removed after casting a spell or attacking
• Troll Blood now gives no regeneration bonus while attacking, being attacked, or taking damage
• Fiery Rage now deals the correct bonus damage on attack
• Rewrote the Creep Camp Respawn Engine to work slightly different any be far more optimized
• Rewrote the Attribute System Engine to utilize vJASS and be more optimized
• The game now ends 60 seconds after the main base is destroyed
• Periodic gold is now awarded every 2 seconds
• Phantom Shield now properly reduces damage when the unit has its max life
• Took many steps to completely eliminate all Game Cache usage from the map, it should run smoother and bug less

Beta

• Fixed Blood Lines learned tooltips
• Fixed a hotkey conflict with Dual Slash
• Nerfed Troll Blood, though I found a bug that the regen was stacking for each level of the ability learned, so the nerf may be to severe
• Towers and Fountains now have true sight, to combat the Camouflage abuse
• Increased the speed of Life Spear slightly
• Creep waves now move in formation rank
• Moved back the first creep wave to 60 seconds after the game starts
• Added in the Horn of Cenarius at the first creep wave, as originally done in AoD
• New Hero: Cyrus, the Dragonspawn Titan
• Creep camp acquisition range changed to camp size
• Hero selection area moved to accommodate new and future heroes

Alpha

• Initial release

 

[IKilledKEnny]

I wish I could help, but even if you needed help my I can't compare myself to you.

Anyway relevant comments:

> select your hero with help from Vexorian's system

link/explanation would be helpful. I admire the tavren system above all other system, complex system just makes it confusing.

> use your regular inventory for base items, or advanced inventory for body part specific items

Seen in DoD by Fulla, great feature!!

> select what attributes increase when your hero levels

Finally some game strategy!! I assume then that there will be know main attribute like there is in regular WC3?

> Imported Terrain Models - neat models which make the terrain that much better

Just make sure the game doesn't lag / makes loading time slow.

> JASS Enhanced Heroes and Items - the best spells and items you have ever seen

We'll see. J/K, you are indeed great with spells.

> Hero Roles - each hero is designed to fit a niche in game play, no more 4 nuke heroes / 4 passive heroes with no point to their existence

Yes!! I hate seeing one hero that solos the game.

overall:
Looks great, wish I could help, no ideas so far I'll sleep over it and see if I can get some.

 

[Nestharus]

Well, personally I don't know much about the vex system and tavern system isn't that great if you're using lots of new things... heh

Like, let's look at regular MMORPG's

In a regular MMORPG, what you do is you select your character then you have maybe 30 stat points for them to distribute.

Then, with some of my newer stuff, you recieve bonuses based on the class you chose, also base stats, then you can make it more unique with 40-50 stat points, a little extreme, but it allows for more focused builds, which should make everything more interesting. You should never do 100% stat distribution though, otherwise it throws off the realism with stat base, and it makes choosing a race more model based instead of stat/bonus based.

When looking at EQ2, they use a system that I developed a little while back which focuses your class, however, my system is much more free.

Based on the way you put in ability points (leveling your black sorcery or your melee combat), you are giving a more specific class instead of just your race name. You don't get to choose your class, it's chosen over time, along with the bonuses. If you are too spread out, you don't get any bonuses because you never achieve a true class : p.

As you level on, your class gets more and more specific until you have to do quests to attain your class. These quests would of course require levels. Of course, you wouldn't have quests in this, but you might have requirements like kill this many creeps, or knock off this many heroes. Or, you could just continue on until they hit the final class and get their final bonuses.

You should really look at the systems I had in Final Dominion. I never got any support for that project, but it just about maxed out the strategy of AoS games, skill requirements, builds, and so forth.

It took out recipes though, along with other things, but had a way to upgrade items. Was very interesting. However, I upgraded some of the systems... i started developing a master-plan RPG that will hopefully be perfectly balanced between fighting, challenges (lotsa maze type things), and so on.

The new combat system is also pretty hot, but it's buggy with the checker to make sure it only hits the units closest to you, unless your weapon has something like cleave on it, or strikethrough.

Oh well, hopefully those are some ideas, but you should really take a look at Final Dominion. Just look at threads started by me and you should find it. Those were some of hottest ideas, lol, and it would probably be one of the top games on b.net = ).

Hope to hear more about this! : D

Btw, if you ever need ideas, I doubt you'd ever need help, heh, but if you ever need ideas, I'm known to have a lot of ideas, heh, as you see here .

 

[emjlr3]

Sounds...awesome..

Are you recruiting people to help?

not actively no, but what did you have in mind?

I wish I could help, but even if you needed help my I can't compare myself to you.

Anyway relevant comments:

> select your hero with help from Vexorian's system

link/explanation would be helpful. I admire the tavren system above all other system, complex system just makes it confusing.

> use your regular inventory for base items, or advanced inventory for body part specific items

Seen in DoD by Fulla, great feature!!

> select what attributes increase when your hero levels

Finally some game strategy!! I assume then that there will be know main attribute like there is in regular WC3?

> Imported Terrain Models - neat models which make the terrain that much better

Just make sure the game doesn't lag / makes loading time slow.

> JASS Enhanced Heroes and Items - the best spells and items you have ever seen

We'll see. J/K, you are indeed great with spells.

> Hero Roles - each hero is designed to fit a niche in game play, no more 4 nuke heroes / 4 passive heroes with no point to their existence

Yes!! I hate seeing one hero that solos the game.

overall:
Looks great, wish I could help, no ideas so far I'll sleep over it and see if I can get some.

Vexs system is one where you get to actually click the hero, check him out, look at spell descrips, etc.
heroes will have innate attribute gain, though it will be low, yo uwill get much more out of picking your stats
there will be no lag, hopefully

Well, personally I don't know much about the vex system and tavern system isn't that great if you're using lots of new things... heh

Like, let's look at regular MMORPG's

In a regular MMORPG, what you do is you select your character then you have maybe 30 stat points for them to distribute.

Then, with some of my newer stuff, you recieve bonuses based on the class you chose, also base stats, then you can make it more unique with 40-50 stat points, a little extreme, but it allows for more focused builds, which should make everything more interesting. You should never do 100% stat distribution though, otherwise it throws off the realism with stat base, and it makes choosing a race more model based instead of stat/bonus based.

When looking at EQ2, they use a system that I developed a little while back which focuses your class, however, my system is much more free.

Based on the way you put in ability points (leveling your black sorcery or your melee combat), you are giving a more specific class instead of just your race name. You don't get to choose your class, it's chosen over time, along with the bonuses. If you are too spread out, you don't get any bonuses because you never achieve a true class : p.

As you level on, your class gets more and more specific until you have to do quests to attain your class. These quests would of course require levels. Of course, you wouldn't have quests in this, but you might have requirements like kill this many creeps, or knock off this many heroes. Or, you could just continue on until they hit the final class and get their final bonuses.

You should really look at the systems I had in Final Dominion. I never got any support for that project, but it just about maxed out the strategy of AoS games, skill requirements, builds, and so forth.

It took out recipes though, along with other things, but had a way to upgrade items. Was very interesting. However, I upgraded some of the systems... i started developing a master-plan RPG that will hopefully be perfectly balanced between fighting, challenges (lotsa maze type things), and so on.

The new combat system is also pretty hot, but it's buggy with the checker to make sure it only hits the units closest to you, unless your weapon has something like cleave on it, or strikethrough.

Oh well, hopefully those are some ideas, but you should really take a look at Final Dominion. Just look at threads started by me and you should find it. Those were some of hottest ideas, lol, and it would probably be one of the top games on b.net = ).

Hope to hear more about this! : D

Btw, if you ever need ideas, I doubt you'd ever need help, heh, but if you ever need ideas, I'm known to have a lot of ideas, heh, as you see here .

neat ideas, tohugh i doubt this map will get that intense as far as RPG gaming goes

I suggest having more than one lane. One lane gives a chance for "stronger" heroes to gank weaker ones. With more possible lanes, the chance drastically decrease.

its not really abut ganking in this game

I would honestly trash the entire lane idea altogether and go with spawning depots, which can be taken over : )

meh...

Aeon of Dominion had a tiny little, single lane, which made it really booring.

I understand that your going to create more than 1 lane in this map? When you do, at least make them curved (with corners), and more interesting than your previous map's.

I hope it will all go well for you emjlr3, however, I noticed you said:



Aeon of Dominions spells were pretty good, but nothing can compare with Vile's spells. Are you planning to make this map better than Age of Myths?

Anyway, good luck, have fun

some ppl like the smallness, 1 laneless of it, it was kind of the point of the game, btw there is only 1 lane in this map

as far as spells go, i though AoD were pretty good, I cant really go out and make all my custom effects how I want them, nor do I have dozens of ppl spewing out ideas for me, I think you are comparing apples and oranges in this case

this map will be nothing like AoM however

Well, not just Age of Myths. Vile's spells were about as good as the team who created Advent of the Zenith.

However, this does seem like a good map with perhaps good profits. I'm willing to contribute, I just don't know what I can offer.

actually there was no team behind AotZ, just Dusk, I don't see where his spells out shine mine either

no knowing what one can offer often leads to problems

Im sure emjlr3 wouldn't want us to help him, unless he can't be bothered doing some things by himself; he's fully capable otherwise, I mean, he's a pro.

a pro.....if by pro you mean I can do stuff that lots of other "pros" can, then yes, however I make no money out of this, I would consider myself an enthusiast more then a pro

 

[Tinki3]

Here's 2 ideas:

Unit Hire - A small building in each base, that has a variety of creeps to summon. The creeps act like the AI, by casting any spells they may have, and they attack-move-to the enemies' base.

It would work well if you made it so the hired creeps spawned in time with the main creeps, so that they push with combined force.


Hero Revival Delay Decrease - An item that reduces hero revival time by 2 seconds, or whatever. The item's price should be quite costly, and can combine its charges to a max cap of 6, reducing hero revival time by 12 seconds. So, if the hero is holding the item whilst he dies, he will have a reduced revival time.

Sound like you may use these, or not?

 

[emjlr3]

I had a nice revival idea, just though you might want to hear it, nothing spell but from what I heard it might git your map. Simply when you die you will not be revived until someone steps in your circle (or somthing like that).

pros:
More strategy (assuming you are using DotA's revival system), it allows to put traps by circles, slow down heros so they won't get there etc.

cons:
If you play with jerks every time you die, you would be revived only after few minutes.

Off Topic:
Could anyone give me links to:
Vex's picking system, it would be fun to check it out and to those 2 maps you said their spells were awesome.

AotZ and Vexs system can be found at Wc3C with a little looking, and AoM is at Viles forums, and with that system I think it would be too dependent on your allies, which is usually not a good thing

Why don't you make it so that when you die, you have to play a small minigame (for example hunting ghosts). If you play it well, you will get back a lot of health and mana and all of your items, if you play it bad you will lose your items and have low health and mana

i had something similar to that in hulks Heroes, however I think it became more of a burden then anything

Here's 2 ideas:

Unit Hire - A small building in each base, that has a variety of creeps to summon. The creeps act like the AI, by casting any spells they may have, and they attack-move-to the enemies' base.

It would work well if you made it so the hired creeps spawned in time with the main creeps, so that they push with combined force.


Hero Revival Delay Decrease - An item that reduces hero revival time by 2 seconds, or whatever. The item's price should be quite costly, and can combine its charges to a max cap of 6, reducing hero revival time by 12 seconds. So, if the hero is holding the item whilst he dies, he will have a reduced revival time.

Sound like you may use these, or not?

I like that item idea, I still am not a fan of timed revivals, but there is really no better system, other then the ghost idea, which I have used in the past

Right now, with the item system and the quests it sounds like it's going to be one of those AoS maps where you spend the first hour just with powering your hero up. Is that meant to be that way? I mean, what's the general game length you are aiming for?

powering up your hero, that is fun no? actually a main point will be questing, at least I hope it will, quests will enable you to largely buff yourself or your team, purchasable items themselves will not be strong, however quest items will be

also, spells themselves will grow strong as you do, and be partially dependent on your hero level or stat points, therefore, there is not real point to spending a lot of time leveling, if you catch my drift, in the long run it will not pay off, since other people level just the same

You finally announced it...but you didn't take any pictures of the terrain. AGH!

But seriously, I think it would clear up some of their questions. AoD had this odd design where there was a single dinky lane and then an entrance into a little forest for creeping and stuff. In IaB, there's a huge war path diagonally connecting (I know it's cliche, but it's better than a horizontal or vertical path--those are always too short) the two and it's surrounded by constant entrances into the icy wilderness on both sides of the road.

Thusly, if you're being pursued, it's VERY easy to walk off the path and converge back in near your base. Of course, newbs will have to learn a little ways of the backroads through the icy chasms, fields of protruding crystal rock, and the two major mountains in the top left and bottom right corners (well, the bottom right one is actually more of a hill).

I will post some , don't worry

anyhow, I'm with stupid

 

[emjlr3]

don't get your hopes up, but this may actually get somewhere sometime soon

editting up with some new/changed aspects of the map in progress

 

[substance]

word.

This is one of the only maps that i'm actually looking forward to, AoD had some awesome spells.

Will the spell leveling work like AoD?

 

[emjlr3]

word.

This is one of the only maps that i'm actually looking forward to, AoD had some awesome spells.

Will the spell leveling work like AoD?

no it will not, I had mixed feeling with the spell leveling in that, both in gameplay and balance

I will be going back to normal spell leveling, as it is tried and true, works well, and is easy to use for everyone

where not as ground breaking, it is easy to use and understand, and again, works like a charm

*updated original thread with new ideas

 

[substance]

New Ideas/Concepts:

Beacons - if anyone has played Company of Heroes, I was considering putting beacons that can be captured and held against the enemy, which can give boosts to heroes and/or the team or allied computer. I think this is a concept that would promote team play, as well as different styles of play.
Assists - this is a tried and true concept that a few games have used to again promote team play and help to share rewards for killing heroes. AoD did not have this, but had enemy heroes drop glyphs that could be shared among the team and used for uber items. Assists could give out rewards for all those involved in hero kills.
Game Modes - as far as hero killing goes. There could be a set limit, where you can die 7 times, and that is it, so if all enemy heroes are killed that many times the game is lost. Or possibly 25 kills allowed per team. These are all different game modes that could be implemented along with normal play.
Re balance - I know that more often then not, games did not always end with the players it started with. This could help to eliminate this problem be re balancing teams so that they are even and the game is once again fare.
Projectile Interaction - a lot of time heroes can shoot spells that in real life would hit each other, possibly negating both, or having one over power the other. This could be implemented so higher level abilities can overpower weaker ones, or that abilities of the same level would hit and dissolve on impact, exacting their effects where they explode. This would add to the realism of the game I feel.
​

Beacon: I've played CoH and I liked this feature (worked well in Dawn of War too). Dunno if it'd work in a AoS, it's rewards are vague.
Assists: Agreed.
Game Modes: A limit? On the surface I dont like this idea.
Re balance: I think this feature should be standard in most wc3 maps, sadly its very rare for a map to have it.
Projectile Interaction: Defniately a cool idea, I've been working on this myself and plan on using Grim's physics system to really push the limit of projectiles.

 

[elmstfreddie]

Assists - this is a tried and true concept that a few games have used to again promote team play and help to share rewards for killing heroes. AoD did not have this, but had enemy heroes drop glyphs that could be shared among the team and used for uber items. Assists could give out rewards for all those involved in hero kills.

Promote team play? Blech. That means you constantly are double/tripled/qaudrupled/etc teamed. Which is a total pain. However sharing items with all the killers is a good idea.
Possibly the gold given to attackers should depend on the damage dealt to that hero by the other hero?
ie 1 dude does 500 damage, the other dude does 100 damage. First dude gets 250 gold, the other gets 50 gold.

 

[emjlr3]

Beacon: I've played CoH and I liked this feature (worked well in Dawn of War too). Dunno if it'd work in a AoS, it's rewards are vague.
Assists: Agreed.
Game Modes: A limit? On the surface I dont like this idea.
Re balance: I think this feature should be standard in most wc3 maps, sadly its very rare for a map to have it.
Projectile Interaction: Defniately a cool idea, I've been working on this myself and plan on using Grim's physics system to really push the limit of projectiles.

not sure the rewards for beacons yet, though i think it may be higher team periodic gold, possibly stronger creep waves, or towers, depending on which you have

you stand on them for x seconds to take them, x+y seconds to take them from enemy and convert them to your team, they can be lost in the same way, a message would pop up saying what was going on so you would be aware, your team would gain visbility of the beacon whie it is yours

game modes as in the host can select them if wanted, however they are not needed or required to play, just fun alternatives to normal gameplay

Promote team play? Blech. That means you constantly are double/tripled/qaudrupled/etc teamed. Which is a total pain. However sharing items with all the killers is a good idea.
Possibly the gold given to attackers should depend on the damage dealt to that hero by the other hero?
ie 1 dude does 500 damage, the other dude does 100 damage. First dude gets 250 gold, the other gets 50 gold.

i dont think it promotes ganking, but more the use of helper heroes, as opposed to straight hero killers

it would prolly just depend on who dealt the final blow, and who did damage within in the last x seconds, or possibly just who is in range, since not all heroes are "damage does" per say, and are much more helpful as support for allies/offensive curses

 

[emjlr3]

some updates on the few things I have done with this monster

Systems - attribute, upgrades(creeps and towers), creep camp re spawn, unit blood, hero selection

Objects - two new heroes, started on a third(one of each attribute), all old basic AoD purchasable and creep drops are staying, custom command icons, bases, terrain(still waiting on Ace to finalize )

Misc. - Multiboard, all basic trigger to make the AoS work, as well as most of all the little features that AoD had(aside from the attribute and ability systems)

Next - I will continue work on the new hero, work on the beacon system, hero assist system, and re balance system, and since I have yet to make any triggered projectiles, that projectile interaction system will wait as of now


more updates to come, stay tuned, and comment

btw SCREEN SHOTS ADDED, before you treat me too harsh, be aware, this terrain was made entirely by me, and is not truly done, hopefully Ace can put some nice final touches on it

 

[substance]

Next - I will continue work on the new hero, work on the beacon system, hero assist system, and re balance system, and since I have yet to make any triggered projectiles, that projectile interaction system will wait as of now

May I suggest using Grim001's physics system. He's releasing a demo map very soon and I can tell you that it's VERY impressive. Perfect for what you described.

BTW, I like the screenies.. has a nice 'epic' feel to it that AoD didnt have.

 

[emjlr3]

thnx, ill look into that system, though I prefer to write my own, as I do with most things

 

[Tinki3]

I can't wait to try this game out. It looks awesome.

Do you have an overview on your completion of the map?

 

[emjlr3]

ill add something liek that in in a bit

 

[duyen]

Looks awesome

 

[emjlr3]

ty

*updated current progres percentage

 

[Tinki3]

5 star vote from me

Terrain 75% done? Looks to be around 95%?
I don't really see what more you could add to it.

Good progress so far.